


Starting To Put The Pieces Back Together

by loves_books



Category: A-Team - All Media Types, The A-Team (2010)
Genre: Faked Death, M/M, Shattered - Freeform, major angst, serious injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-02
Updated: 2014-01-02
Packaged: 2018-01-07 02:33:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1114470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loves_books/pseuds/loves_books
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A companion piece to 'Shattered' and my 'Mama B' series, in which BA's Mother reacts to some of the key events in 'Shattered', starting when she hears the terrible news that Face has been killed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Shattered](https://archiveofourown.org/works/931829) by [loves_books](https://archiveofourown.org/users/loves_books/pseuds/loves_books). 



> In the following story, I've written Mama B's perspective on some of the events in 'Shattered'. For that reason, this story will make very little sense if you haven't read either 'Shattered' or my 'Mama B' series. I've had to play around a little with the timeframes in order to bring these two universes together - in 'Shattered', Hannibal and Face hadn't become a couple until after the concluding events of the movie, while in my 'Mama B' stories they had been together and in love since long before Mexico. The following story sticks more closely to 'Shattered', though it involves key elements of the 'Mama B' series as well. Hopefully this will all make some sense to anyone who does read this story. I'd love to hear if you think this story works - it's been in my head since I finished 'Shattered', but it's taken me a long time to actually start writing it.

She will always remember the day she gets that phone call. Or, more accurately, the day she receives one phone call after another, as her friends and family hear the news before she does. She never watches Fox News, hardly ever watches any news channel if she’s honest – anything she wants or needs to know about the world she picks up easily enough from the radio or the newspapers. Add that to years of being pestered by reporters, eager to talk to the Mother of one of the infamous A Team, and she knows better than to believe anything she reads or sees or hears on the news.

Her best friend is the first to call, telling her to turn on the television, telling her something has happened to one of her son’s team. Her sister calls next, just as she is looking for the remote control, just as she manages to finally find the right channel. Her nephew actually comes round, one of Scooter’s many cousins, worried that she might suddenly be hounded by reporters once again, looking for a reaction to the announcement. Her family have been very protective over her since her boys had to go on the run.

But despite it all, she never believes a word of the reports, not for a second. She always remembers something Hannibal said one time, one rare serious evening when they were talking about the work the team did. Years back now, back before the whole mess with those plates and then the LA docks, back before Scooter and all the team were jailed, back when they were still Rangers rather than wanted federal fugitives. They are still Rangers to her, always and forever, her boy and his three brave teammates. 

Hannibal had told her they never left a man behind, never stopped looking for them, not ever, not unless they saw a body. They would never leave anyone behind without knowing what had happened, and that had comforted her as much as it horrified her too. She never wanted to know too many details of what the team did, though she was no fool – they were Rangers, Special Forces, most of their missions classified beyond belief. She also knows they were the very best at what they did, and hearing Hannibal say that had comforted her somehow. Scooter would never be left behind, not while he served with Colonel Hannibal Smith and his boys. Her boys, all of them, her son’s family therefore hers too. 

So she never believes a word of the reports. It never even crosses her mind that it might be true. Most likely it was a trap, designed to draw the team out of hiding. Perhaps Face had been captured and was being used to draw her son and his team out – that thought should have horrified her, but she knows nothing of the lives her four boys live now they are on the run, only that they are still together and still safe, still working to help those who had no chance of helping themselves, hoping one day to clear their names of the charges levelled against them. She is still so very proud of her Scooter, proud of Hannibal, Murdock and Face too. Face, who is the focus of these reports, the reports she won’t believe. Not until she hears it from her son. 

And then, Scooter rings. He keeps his call brief and to the point, knowing as she does that her phone line is tapped by the military, and probably by several different press agencies too – to her absolute horror he tells her it is true, and her heart breaks cleanly in two. Face had been hit by a speeding jeep during an ambush designed to capture the team. He had died in hospital, on the surgeon’s table as they fought to save his life, never waking up but slipping away quietly. Alone, and separated from the team. Separated from his two brothers, and from his lover, Hannibal.

Scooter’s voice is barely recognisable, showing virtually no emotion as he reports those bare facts to her. Hannibal is devastated, he tells her, though of course he makes no mention of the deeply personal relationship shared by the colonel and the lieutenant, wary of listening ears. Murdock had been through a little breakdown during the four days where they hadn’t known what had happened to Face – the pilot had seen the accident happen, apparently, and her heart just breaks again to think of them all suffering so much, their little family of four torn apart forever.

She quietly asks Scooter how he is coping, knowing it is a pointless question but not knowing how to comfort her darling son over a cold, clinical telephone line. He doesn’t answer her for a long time, and she might have thought he’d gone if it wasn’t for the sound of unsteady breathing over the line. When he finally speaks, his voice is suddenly raw and devastated, a barely contained sob audible.

“Just shattered, Mama,” he gasps eventually, and she wants to hold him, more than anything. Wants to wrap him up in her arms and tell him it will all be okay. But it won’t be. “He’s gone, and it ain’t fair. It’s just so wrong, but he’s gone. Face is really gone.”

“Oh my poor baby.” She is crying herself by that point, though she tries to keep her voice as calm as she can. Her boys were so far away from her; if she could snap her fingers and be with them, she would do it in a heartbeat, federal fugitives or not. “Oh, Scooter, I know it’s not fair. But he didn’t suffer, you say?”

“Sosa said not. Said he never woke up after the crash, after that bastard mowed him down, after…” On a normal day, she would shout at her son for swearing, but this is far from a normal day. She struggles for a moment to know what to say, but Scooter solves her dilemma by speaking quickly, his voice back to that emotionless blankness that scares her a little. “I should go, Mama. I’ll call when I can. Love you.”

“I love you too, baby. So much.” And he is gone, the line suddenly dead, the silence absolute.

She sits for a long time on the chair in the hallway, the telephone still pressed to her ear, listening to the dial tone until a mechanical voice comes on the line and politely asks her to hang up. Tears run down her face, but she couldn’t possibly care less. It is true, and she still can’t believe it. Face is really gone from the world, that bright and brilliant young life snatched away far too soon.

Of all her son’s team, Face had been the one she had to really work to get to know. He had been the one who hadn’t known how to respond to her as she automatically mothered all four of the boys, all those years ago when Scooter had first brought them home to meet her, just months after they had first got together as a team. Murdock had responded to her instantly, soaking up attention like a sponge, and even Hannibal had relaxed and let her fuss over them all, still watching over his three charges. Scooter had been just as he always was whenever he returned to their home, the little house they’d shared until he left to join the army, her loving and attentive little boy, now a man. Face had been the one who had struggled, though he’d fought hard to appear normal.

She’d eventually found out during that first visit that he had grown up in the Catholic care system, in and out of foster care, never knowing a true Mother’s love. He simply hadn’t known how to act around her, but he had gradually relaxed around her as she had been more careful about fussing over him, and over the years she knew he had grown to love her just as she loved him. Scooter was her only biological son, but she has three adopted sons too. Now one of them has been killed, and her worst nightmare is coming true.

She isn’t stupid. She knows the jobs her boys do are dangerous, now almost more than when they were actually still running missions for the Rangers. Now they work underground, on the run from both the military police and bounty hunters, and the threat of gang violence and organised crime scares her almost more than the threat of foreign armies and terrorists ever did. Still, she’d worked hard over the years on not fretting over things she couldn’t change – her son is a grown man, as are his team, and they are the best at what they do, now as much as they ever have been. She couldn’t sit around and worry about them, even if they were never out of her thoughts entirely, so she lived her life as best she could. Work, volunteering, friends and family all kept her busy. She dated, occasionally, though less so now she was approaching retirement. She was happy, for the most part, and she always tried hard not to think about the day when she might get the phone call she dreaded, telling her one of her boys had been killed.

And now it had happened. It had really happened. Face, her wonderful, irreplaceable Templeton, has been killed. And her heart feels completely shattered, though at the very same time she feels incredibly guilty for being the tiniest bit grateful it wasn’t her Scooter. Face would forgive her that much, she knows, even as the tears stream down her cheeks. Face was a good soul, a unique and special man, and he was gone now. The world would be less bright now without his wide grin and those sparkling blue eyes, without that silver tongue of his. He had been a charmer, a con man, and yet also one of the most sweet and genuine men she had ever known, always so insecure beneath his carefully created masks and layers.

The moment she realises she is already thinking of him in the past tense nearly kills her too, and she starts sobbing hard, one hand covering her mouth to muffle the sounds. Her poor boy, all her poor boys. 

And poor Hannibal, above and beyond Murdock and her Scooter. She knows all too well how much it hurts to lose someone you love, to lose the other half of your heart. Her beloved husband Jackson, stolen away from her too soon by a single bullet shot through his heart, so many long lonely years ago when their son was just a little boy. She knows how it seems like the pain will never end, how there is nothing but darkness and depression. How it feels to ask ‘why’, again and again and again, and never to know the reason. Eventually realising that there is no reason. Only the cold, hard truth: they are gone forever.

Hannibal and Face had been two halves of the same person, for as long as she’d known them. They’d worked together seamlessly, appearing to read each other’s minds at time, finishing each other’s sentences, closer than any teammates had a right to be, then lovers who seemed so very deeply in love. She had envied them that love, that soul-deep connection she had lost when Jackson had been killed. She had rarely seen one without the other, and she remembers now how off-balance they seemed when they were apart.

How on earth would Hannibal cope, now? She wishes more than anything that she could talk to the colonel, the oldest of her adopted boys. She can just imagine how much he will be struggling, yet she can also picture too clearly how he will be trying to help Scooter and Murdock through it all, pushing down his own feelings. She hopes he can find some way to grieve, though she can’t imagine how he will ever be able to move on.

The next days pass in a blur. Her family rally around her, her sister moving into her house along with her nephew, both of them answering the phone and shielding her from the expected reporters, who turn out in far greater number now than when the team first went on the run. Her son doesn’t call again, and she can understand that, as much as she wants desperately to speak to them all. 

She agonises about whether she should attend her adopted son’s funeral. Someone should be there, surely, to represent the team, Face’s family and his lover, who certainly can’t risk making an appearance. But in the end she decides with a heavy heart not to make the trip, expecting the funeral to be a media circus, which of course it is. Templeton wouldn’t know she was there, wouldn’t want her in the middle of all that, and she knows no one else who would attend. She watches some of the coverage on the news, sees the protesters who silently and respectfully demand pardons for the team. It has been a long time since she attended church, but she finds herself praying for the soul of her boy, knowing Templeton was raised as a Catholic, knowing that, despite the life he lead and the challenges he had always faced, some of those beliefs still meant the world to her boy. 

She prays that Face really didn’t suffer at the end, praying his former girlfriend spoke true and he truly was unaware of what had happened. She prays there was no pain. She prays for those he leaves behind, for his lover Hannibal, John. And above all, she prays her boy finds some peace now, a peace he was always striving to find in his troubled life. Perhaps he will find it in death.

The whole thing still feels so unreal, despite the fact she always knew in her heart that this was a possibility, that one of her boys might not make it home to her again. Two weeks after the funeral, two long weeks where her life has slowly started to return to normal, alone in her home once again, and she makes the decision to fly to Los Angeles and visit her son’s grave. She still hasn’t heard from the surviving members of the team – she can only imagine where they are now, how they are trying to cope – and while she knows Scooter would probably caution her against making the trip, she feels she needs to be there. Just once, to say goodbye. If she can.

She travels alone, despite offers of company from her family and friends, knowing this is a journey she needs to make by herself. And when she finally stands in the tiny graveyard, near the orphanage where she suspects her poor boy spent most of his early years, it starts to hit her hard. The graveyard is well tended at least, the grass neatly mowed and the hedges trimmed. The headstones are clean, and there are flowers in front of each grave, much to her surprise. Face’s final resting place is near the back, tucked away in a far corner by a rose bush. The headstone is simple, plain, nothing but his name and the date of his death – that seems wrong, somehow, and she feels the anger start to come even as the tears run down her face yet again.

He was more than this, her boy. He was so much more than just a name and a date. She understands, perhaps, that no one knew Face’s true birthday, nor the name his birth mother gave him, but he was more than just those bare facts engraved on cold stone. He was a brave soldier who served his country for years, decorated many times over. He was a good man, a true and loyal friend, and the dearly loved partner of another good man. It angers her to see this bare gravestone, nearly as much as it grieves her that he is dead, but still she lowers herself carefully to kneel by her adopted son’s final resting place, her old bones protesting the movement.

“Oh Templeton,” she murmurs, tracing her hand over the letters on his gravestone. “My precious boy. I wish… I wish this hadn’t happened, son. I wish you were still here, with Hannibal and Murdock and Scooter. And me.” He isn’t here, she knows that much. She doesn’t feel his presence, only his loss, but somehow it helps her to talk. “You’ll be missed so much, my boy. You were loved, and you will always be loved.”

Her words dry up then, as the tears threaten to choke her. She wonders if she should have brought flowers, but the simple daisies resting by his grave give her comfort. Someone tends to this little cemetery, probably the priests and nuns of the parish, and he will be cared for even though he is no longer here with the people who love him.

Face is free now, she realises with a sob, truly free in a way he never had been during his life. He is at peace, no longer suffering, and those who are left behind will have to find a way to carry on. She can’t help him now, but she can take some comfort in the knowledge that he knew she loved him like her own Scooter. He knew something of what it was to have a Mother who loved him dearly, and now she has to help her remaining three boys as much as she can.

Though she has no idea how she can do that, not with them on the run once more, grieving and suffering as they are. 

“I’ll look after them as much as I possibly can, Templeton,” she whispers, when her tears finally subside enough to let her speak again. “I promise you, I’ll love them and protect them, as long as I live.”


	2. Chapter 2

Scooter and Murdock aren’t with her when Captain Sosa phones unexpectedly one sunny afternoon, but they are close by and she is glad of that. They’ve been visiting with her for a few days, just the two of them where there should have been three. Where there should have really been four, but her poor Templeton has been dead and buried these long nine months.

Hannibal should have been here with her two youngest boys, but he’d apparently taken a flight out to meet a potential new client rather than driving across the country with Scooter and Murdock as planned. She knows her Scooter in particular has been worried about his colonel’s state of mind after their most recent job, though he hasn’t said as much out loud to her. Her fugitive boys have been working in a town very near to where they had been ambushed all those months ago – near where Face had been fatally injured – and she can’t even imagine the strain they have all been under, even though she can see glimpses of it in the shadows beneath Murdock’s eyes, and the deeper lines on her Scooter’s face. He looks older now, her baby boy, and that worries her.

Only the second time she’s been able to see them since Face had died, though she wishes with all her heart that she could have been with them every minute as they’d struggled with their grief. One brief meeting six months ago, when she had flown out to Alabama to an old cabin by a lake, one week where they had all been able to talk and cry and, finally, to laugh a little and remember Face with love. 

Murdock had burst into tears the very moment she’d walked in the door, and Scooter hadn’t been far behind – she had already been crying before she’d even stepped out of her taxi – but Hannibal had been stoic and dry-eyed until late that night, when the two younger men had gone to bed. She’d seen he was struggling – of course he was struggling, how could he not be struggling? – and she’d simply moved closer, pulling him into her arms as he broke down. 

All she’s had since then have been a few brief phone calls, stolen moments of contact with her son and his surviving team as they’ve remained on the run. As always she’s tried to carry on her normal life, but she’s been finding it more and more difficult as time goes by. She’s lost one of her boys already – which one will be next?

Now, with Scooter and Murdock in a motel an hours’ drive away from her little house, she frowns to herself when the phone rings one sunny afternoon. Sales call, most likely, or her work yet again, wondering where she’s left this file or that one. She’d left everything organised before taking her planned week off to be with the boys, but still they seem unable to cope without her.

“Hello?” she says when she picks up the phone, silencing the ringing that seems so loud in her empty house.

“Hello there,” comes a clear, calm female voice. Salesperson, she decides instantly, her suspicion seemingly backed up when the next words come. “Am I speaking to Mrs Baracus?”

“This is she.” Or the press, perhaps. Another junior reporter looking to make their name by getting an interview with her.

But the woman’s next words surprise her completely. “Mrs Baracus, my name is Charissa Sosa. Captain Sosa. I’m a friend of Face’s. A friend of your son and his team.”

Well, wasn’t that just the last thing she had expected to hear? She knows very little about this Captain Sosa, the woman who stole Face’s heart so many years ago before, from what she’s been able to figure out, breaking it into pieces for Hannibal to pick up and put back together. Face never spoke of Sosa to her, not even once, but Scooter had filled her in very quickly on their first visit to her after things had fallen apart so badly between them – Face had been trying far too hard to seem normal, a huge white smile permanently fixed in place, but she’d known him well enough by then to see straight through it to the broken-hearted little boy beneath the bravado.

“I’ve heard of you, of course, Captain,” she says eventually. “You were with my Face for some time.”

“Yes, Ma’am, I was.” The words are quick, precise. No beating around the bush or pretence. A straight-talker, she thinks with approval, this Captain Sosa. How did she ever cope with Face and his ability to speak around any given subject for hours on end?

“You of all people should know my phone is probably tapped, Captain Sosa. But how can I help you today?” Enough of a warning, she thinks, expecting the call to be cut short after that.

But again, the Captain’s next words are a surprise. “I need to get a message to your son, Ma’am. And it doesn’t matter if this call is being monitored – it will probably be hitting the news soon, breaking overnight. I wanted to call you first.”

A message to Scooter? Straight away her thoughts fly to her missing boy, to Hannibal, off doing whatever he was doing with this mysterious new client. She can’t have lost another one; surely the world isn’t that cruel. 

“What’s happened?” she asks, trying not to let her sudden fear show in her voice.

“It’s good news, in part. BA and Murdock have both been pardoned, in full; I’ve seen the paperwork with my own eyes and had everything checked over. But Hannibal has been jailed. He struck a deal with the military.”

She takes a huge breath, trying to process the other woman’s words. Far too much to take in all at once – pardoned? Jailed? And what deal – what on earth has Hannibal done? “I don’t understand,” she confesses. “Scooter’s a free man?”

There is the slightest hint of confusion in the other woman’s voice when she speaks again. “Er, yes, Mrs Baracus. They both are. I have no way to contact them, and I hoped, perhaps…” 

Ah, so this is the true reason for the call. If it had come from anyone but this woman, she’d be hanging up right about now. So many times over these last difficult years someone has tried to use her to get to her boys. But she has never let that happen, not once, and she takes great pride in remembering how she has scared away some of the more persistent reporters in the past. She might look like a relatively small and weak older lady, but she’s spent her entire life in the tough suburbs of Chicago and raised a son there – you don’t survive that without learning a few tricks.

Her two boys are close by, an hour away for safety’s sake. She doesn’t think she’s being watched, not anymore, but still she won’t let the team visit her at home. Better safe than sorry, and Scooter has never argued with her. She has many friends in her street, good people she has spent her entire life with, and they always tell her when someone starts asking questions. No one has asked anything for the last few months now, but still she travels out of the city to meet up with the boys. And she has a cheap and disposable mobile phone to contact them with, just in case.

In answer to Sosa’s unasked question, she replies, “I’m sure I can find a way, Captain. But I can’t quite believe it. So suddenly? And poor Hannibal, is he alright? That man has been through enough, surely, what with losing Face.”

“He’s fine, Ma’am. In good spirits.” 

She barely manages to contain her instinctive snort at that – surely Hannibal must be anything but fine, after everything he’s been through. Losing his lover in the terrible way he had, not even being able to be by Templeton’s side at the end. And now to be jailed, whether or not the colonel had been the one to strike the deal…

Thoughts of Face dying alone, and now thoughts of Hannibal sitting in a lonely prison cell, those are almost too much to bear all of a sudden. “You know about Face, of course?” she asks the Captain, suddenly unsure of just how much the other woman might be aware of. She knows Sosa helped the team when they first went on the run, despite her history with Face and the risk to her own career, but she has no idea how much they have been in contact since. “You know how he was killed, and poor Murdock saw it happen.”

“I know what happened, Ma’am, but – ”

“He was my son too, you realise,” she cuts the other woman off, needing this Captain Sosa to understand just what Face meant to her. What the team all mean to her, from her precious son Scooter, to her crazy boy Murdock, and her oldest, Hannibal. “My boy. They are all my boys, Captain. And if this turns out to be a trap – ”

“It’s not.”

“ – If it turns out to be a trap, you’ll have me to answer to.” An empty threat perhaps, at her age, but she will defend the team to her dying breath, disgusted at the way the military have treated them over the last few years. She takes a deep breath to calm herself a fraction – it isn’t Sosa’s fault, she knows that. “I’m sorry, Captain Sosa, it’s been a long and difficult few years. This is hard to believe.”

An understatement, that. Difficult doesn’t even begin to cover it, though she knows the team have had it a hundred times worse than she has. A thousand times worse.

Have they really been pardoned? Can Scooter and Murdock really start to rebuild their lives? And Hannibal, what next for the leader of the A Team?

“I understand, really I do.” The captain’s voice is serious, soft now where before it was forceful. “And I promise it’s no trap. I know they’ll be suspicious and I can’t say I blame them. Please remind them they can trust me, they know they can. Ask them to call me, or if they prefer to meet me perhaps. They could come to me here in DC if they want.” 

Scrabbling for a pen and paper, she quickly jots down the contact information the Captain offers her. Phone numbers, emails, addresses – she’s sure Scooter and Murdock already have all of this, but she’ll give them all the information she can before letting them make their own decision. She can’t help but have her own doubts about all of this, especially about what on earth is going on with poor Hannibal, and obviously they will be doubtful as well, until they can check it all out for themselves. She knows they still have contacts, friends on the inside who will help them discover the truth.

“Alright, child,” she says eventually, when the other woman has fallen silent. “I’ll tell them.”

“Thank you.” An audible sigh of relief, and that softens her heart a fraction towards the other woman. “Please, tell them it’s true and it’s important. And there is more they need to know, more good news I can’t go into over the telephone.”

“More secrets, Captain?” She laughs at that; of course there are more secrets. “I’ll tell them, but I can’t make them trust you. My Scooter has to make his own decisions. I didn’t raise me a fool.”

“No, Ma’am, you certainly didn’t. And remember, you’ll see something of this on the news, very soon now, I expect.”

“I’ll be watching, child.” The last news report she saw about the team turned out to be true, despite her doubts, and she’ll watch out carefully for this one. And if it is really true, if Hannibal has truly been sent back to jail, and if Scooter and Murdock really have their pardons… Shaking herself, she focusses back on the telephone. There will be time to take everything in later, hopefully, but everything will change again after this, regardless. “Thank you for calling me. You will call again, if you hear anything more? And you’ll give Hannibal all my love? My poor boy…”

“I will, Mrs Baracus. I promise.” A hint of warmth now in the other woman’s voice, and she finds herself believing this Captain Sosa, this woman who has risked so much to help her boys over the years.

With a smile, even though the Captain can’t see her, she tells her, “Mama, Captain Sosa. I’m just Mama.” 

“Thanks, Mama. And I’m just Charissa. Goodbye for now.” 

“Goodbye, Charissa.” She waits until she hears the click of the other woman hanging up before she replaces her own phone, head spinning and thoughts racing. Where does she even begin to start understanding something like this? All this talk of deals and jails and pardons, after so much death and grief – it’s all a bit too much for her. All she ever wanted was a simple life, though she would never complain for a second about the twists and turns she has been through. How is she supposed to cope with this now?

For a moment, it all weighs on her too heavily, and she feels tears starting to threaten in spite of everything. The thought of Hannibal back in jail after so much suffering is almost too much to bear, but in the next instant the thought of Scooter and Murdock being free at long last makes her smile again. So unfair, this is all so unfair.

Shaking herself yet again, she takes a deep breath. It might not be fair, but it is life. Losing Face the way they had wasn’t fair, not even remotely – Hannibal losing his lover wasn’t fair, Scooter and Murdock losing their brother wasn’t fair – but it had happened, and they had just barely begun to think about moving on. Never forgetting him, that was unthinkable, but life had to go on. And now this would change everything once more.

And it isn’t about her, she reminds herself, going in search of that little mobile phone Scooter had given her earlier. This is about her boys, and any decisions about what to do next are theirs. She can help, perhaps, counsel them certainly, but the next steps belong to them alone. If it’s true, well…

She dials almost without thinking, waits for her son to pick up. “Scooter?” she says slowly, not quite sure where to begin. “I’ve just had a call…”


	3. Chapter 3

She still thinks this is all a dream, or a trick of some kind – things have happened so fast these last few days, since that strange call from Captain Sosa telling her two of her boys were free men, and one was back in jail. Now, she can’t help but shake her head in wonder as she sits in the back of the town car which is driving her across Washington DC to the hotel where Scooter and Murdock are staying. This is the last place in the world she expected to find herself, at her age.

Scooter had apologised over and over again for not being able to meet her at the airport, assuring her there would be a driver waiting instead. More meetings with Hannibal’s lawyers, he had said; she knows both Murdock and Scooter have been tied up in meeting after meeting since their pardons were made official, knows they are incredibly busy, but her baby boy had still begged her to come. 

“Please, Mama,” he’d asked, as he so rarely asked her for anything. “I need you here, we all do.”

And she had wanted to come of course, wanted to see them both as soon as she could, wanted to see Hannibal if there was any possible way. But the last thing she wants to be is a bother. “Scooter, baby, I can come up in a week or two if it’s easier. I don’t want to get in the way – all your meetings, and the lawyers, I can’t even imagine…” 

“Oh Mama, you’d never be in the way.” He’d paused for a long time, and she had just listened to him breathing, staying quiet herself. “Please, just get on the plane. I… We need to talk, Mama, there’s somethin’ else goin’ on here.”

“Captain Sosa’s ‘good news’?” she had asked, shaking her head with a smile. More politics, no doubt – she still couldn’t get her head around everything that was happening, and she had just known there was more to this whole situation than a straight swap of jail time for pardons. 

But Scooter hadn’t answered her question, instead simply begging her again, “Just come, Mama. Please, just come to DC.”

She could never deny her boy anything, and so she had got on the very next plane across the country. Now here she sits, in the back of a sleek black town car, feeling as if she must surely be in a daydream. Lost in her thoughts, she almost misses it when the driver guides the car to a smooth stop outside a tall building; the hotel, she realises, clutching her handbag a little tighter where it rests in her lap.

“This is it, Ma’am,” the driver announces with a cheerful smile over his shoulder, and she takes another deep breath as the hotel doorman hurries forward to open her door and help her from the car.

“Thank you,” she tells the young driver, before turning to the doorman. “Thank you, son. My bags – ?”

“We’ll take of everything, Ma’am.” With a snap of his fingers, another suited doorman appears and hurries to the rear of the car, even as she is guided into the hotel and escorted towards the elevator. “I’m to take you straight up to your son, Mrs Baracus. He asked me to take special care of you.” 

“I’m flattered.” How typical of her Scooter, she thinks, even as they start to rise up in the elevator. “My son can be very protective.” The doorman smiles at her but says nothing, offering her his arm instead as the doors slide open to reveal a long hotel corridor, numbered doors visible at regular intervals.

Her escort takes her along the corridor to a door at the far end, knocking twice before stepping back to a discreet distance. The sound of heavy footsteps and then the door is flung wide open, and she releases the breath she didn’t realise she was holding as she finds herself swept up in her son’s strong arms.

“You’re here, you’re really here,” Scooter murmurs in her ear, holding her tight, and she wraps her arms as far as she can around her son’s back, pressing a kiss to his cheek.

“I’m here, baby,” she tells him, letting him lift her off her feet just a little. “It’s okay, Scooter. Mama’s here.”

After what seems an eternity, she hears the doorman clear his throat behind her, and Scooter lowers her carefully back to the ground, keeping one hand on her waist as he leans around to shake the other man’s hand. “Thanks, man,” he tells the doorman, before turning to guide her into his hotel room.

Hotel suite, she realises with a start as she gets a good look at the place. Not the top end of luxury of course, since she knows there is no hefty compensation pay out from the Army to cover their costs, but a nice place nonetheless, a decent sized living area with two doors leading off into what she can only assume are bedrooms and bathrooms. 

“Not bad,” she tells her son with a smile, crossing to one of the sofas and settling her tired bones into the soft cushions. “Oh, that’s better.”

Scooter immediately comes to sit next to her and she opens her arms to him again, letting him hold her close. “So glad you’re here, Mama,” he whispers in her ear, and she can’t help but smile again, though it’s rare for him to be this clingy with her. 

It must have been so hard on him these last few days, she knows, coping with all the legal side of things with only Murdock and this Captain Sosa to help him. Hannibal had always been their team’s leader, of course, both in the Rangers and during their time on the run, with Face as his second – since Face’s death, and with Murdock being as wonderfully unpredictable as he always is, she knows Scooter has tried his hardest to step up. But her baby boy can only do so much; she fears he’s been very much out of his depth here in DC. 

“I’m really here,” she tries to reassure him, and things finally start to feel real as she feels his bulk come to rest heavily against her. She can feel his chest rise and fall as he takes huge breaths, and she realises he is trying not to cry. “Oh Scooter, it’ll be okay now. I’m here, and I’ll do whatever I can to help. We’ll get Hannibal out of jail soon, I know it.”

She wishes she was as confident as she sounds. She’s spoken to both Scooter and Murdock at least twice a day since they left Chicago to come to DC, and she’s heard all about the deal Hannibal has struck with the military. It’s really true, though she still can’t believe it – Scooter and Murdock are really free men, their pardons already signed and sealed before they even heard about what had happened. She’s not spoken to Hannibal yet, though she’s hopeful she can maybe visit with her oldest boy while she is here in the capital, but from her limited legal knowledge it sounds like the deal is pretty much set in stone, and the colonel is really on his way back to jail for a considerable stretch.

Legal advice might be beyond her, but she can be here for her boys at least, can support them all as only a mother can. She continues to hold her son as tightly as possible, rocking him ever so slightly, murmuring words of comfort in his ear until he suddenly stiffens, pulling back from her. 

“Sorry, Mama,” he gasps suddenly, and she can see exactly where his thoughts have turned. She raised him well, her little boy. “I should’ve thought – you need anythin’? You want tea, or you need to lie down after your flight?”

Hushing him, she opens her arms again as she quickly reassures him. “I’m just fine, baby. I’m just fine.”

But to her surprise he doesn’t move back into her embrace, taking one of her hands instead and holding it tightly between both of his. “Oh, Mama. I don’t know how to do this – I wanted to wait, let you settle in a bit, but I just got to tell you. Can’t wait.”

The deep frown that hovers on his dark face worries her more than anything else she’s seen or heard over the last few days. It scares her a little too, the thought that he has been holding something back. Something that is obviously important. Something he wanted to tell her face to face, rather than over the phone and from a distance, and suddenly it makes so much more sense that he’d wanted her to come.

“Whatever it is, Scooter, you know you can talk to me.” When he bites his lower lip, shaking his head slowly, she moves a little closer on the sofa, their legs pressed together now. His muscular thighs make hers look like twigs. “You can, baby. Just take a deep breath and say it.”

When he finally speaks, his whispered words hit her like a sledgehammer, knocking all the air from her lungs. “It’s Face, Mama. He’s alive.”

“What…?” she gasps, tears of shock springing to her eyes immediately, even as she can’t quite take in what her son is saying. “Scooter, what on earth…?”

“He’s alive. He’s hurt – he’s really badly hurt, Mama. But he’s been alive all this time. In hospital, then in prison for a while, then livin’ here in DC.”

It can’t be possible, she thinks, mind spinning wildly. He was killed, hit by a speeding jeep. There was a funeral; there is a grave. She has grieved for her Templeton, cried for him and prayed for him, started to come to terms with the fact that he is no longer on this earth with them all as he should be. Tried to be grateful that at least he hadn’t suffered at the end. Now, to hear he is alive and hurting – she can’t accept that, can’t believe it, though she wants to. 

“I don’t understand.” She shakes her head slowly, and Scooter immediately pulls her back into a hug, his huge arms cradling her as she starts to shake a little. “I don’t understand it at all. What do you mean, baby? I can’t believe it – Face is alive? Did you know, all this time? Where is he, how is he hurt?” 

And her son starts to talk, the words tumbling out of his mouth, faster and faster as if he can’t stop now he’s started. Something she just can’t follow about Face faking his own death, trying to protect them all, not wanting to be a burden on his lover or his friends when he knew they couldn’t be by his side – and how typical is that, she can’t help thinking, even as her brain struggles to take it all in. How typical that Face would think of everyone but himself. But Scooter skates around the subject of Face’s injuries – after that brief mention of a stay in hospital, she can tell he is being careful not to give her any details right now. She doesn’t dare interrupt him, not yet. It truly does sound like an impossible situation Face was in, but she can’t quite believe he would have chosen to let his lover and his friends think him dead – just how badly was her poor boy hurt? 

The team really didn’t know, Scooter tells her over and over again, and she can see the mixed emotions burning in her son’s dark eyes as he tells her again how they really thought Face had died all those months ago. How stunned they had been to find him living here, when he and Murdock had come to confront Sosa about Hannibal. She can see anger and relief and confusion, all there in equal measure. All perhaps valid, though she doesn’t know everything, can’t follow half of what he tells her, his words too fast and hurried. Eventually, she has to stop him, a little dizzy with the weight of everything she has heard, as well as all the things her son has left unsaid.

But though she may not understand even a fraction of what has happened, one fact stands out above all others. One incredible, miraculous fact: Face is alive. Templeton is really alive, hurting but alive. Her adopted boy is alive, and nothing else matters right now. 

“Where is he?” she asks again, trying to keep her words calm and steady, blinking back the stunned tears from her eyes. “Scooter, where is he now?”

“Close,” her son says at last, his arms tightening almost painfully around her. “He’s close, Mama. He’s been stayin’ with Sosa since he got out of jail.”

“Jail? But Hannibal’s in jail – Face was too?” Scooter had mentioned that, of course, then never returned to the subject. But now, the very moment the words are out of her mouth she shakes her head, stopping her son before he can answer her. “No, forget I asked – not important right now. He’s alive, and he’s here in DC?”

“Yes, Mama.”

Immediately she pulls herself free from his arms, pushing quickly up to her feet, ignoring the way her old knees protest at the sudden movement. “Then you take me there, son. Right now.”

“Mama…” he sounds reluctant, and that won’t do. She holds out her hand to him, beckoning him to get up.

“Right now,” she repeats firmly, and he slowly stands, ever the obedient son. “You can talk on the way over – tell me as much as you can, baby, in as much detail as you can bear. But just you take me there, Bosco Albert Baracus.”

Scooter suddenly takes a breath before he blurts, “He’s paralysed.” 

It takes a second to hit her, but when it does… Paralysed, Face? Dear lord, her poor boy. Her aching knees threaten to give out for a moment, and she clutches at her chest as she squeezes her eyes shut. So many more questions spin through her mind, so many questions though she is no longer sure she wants to hear the answers. 

Scooter’s strong hands catch her as she wavers and try to lower her back to the sofa, but she resists. “No, son – I’m fine, but Face…”

“Sit a second, Mama.” Worry in his voice, but she opens her eyes, shaking her head fiercely and pulling away from his grip with a wrench.

“Take me to Templeton,” she demands, forcing iron into her voice though her insides feel like jelly and her knees shake, staring her son down even as he towers over her. And eventually he nods, a single jerky motion, before he takes her arm.

When he speaks again, his voice is quieter, calmer. More resigned, almost. “Okay, Mama. Okay, I’ll take you to him. Murdock’s with him now – I know they’ll both want to see you.”


	4. Chapter 4

They remain silent as Scooter takes her back down in the elevator, helps her climb up into his van – always the same black van for her son, she can’t help but think with a fond smile, even as her head continues to spin. Only when they eventually drive out of the hotel parking lot and onto the busy streets of DC, only then does Scooter start to talk again, his words now calmer and more focussed than before. Where previously there had been an outpouring of words and emotions, now there are only facts and figures, times and dates. Things he has clearly learned of only recently, and she can tell her baby boy is still trying to work through his own feelings on everything that has happened to his brother during these last long months they have been apart.

She listens without question, letting him talk, watching his face the whole time even though his brooding gaze remains focussed on the road ahead, as he takes her ever closer to her missing boy.

Scooter tells her how Face had apparently woken up in handcuffs after emergency surgery, already under arrest and paralysed from the waist down with no hope of recovery, his spinal cord severed and two vertebrae shattered in the accident. He tells her how Face, desperate and in pain, had somehow come to the conclusion that it was better to let his team think him dead than have to watch him go to prison, knowing he couldn’t go on the run ever again. How Colonel Decker had gone along with it all, staging the funeral in a failed attempt to draw Hannibal out of hiding. How Captain Sosa had been with Face when he’d woken after surgery, agreeing to lie to the team on his behalf, supporting her former lover as much as she possibly could.

She can hear the anger in her son’s words when he speaks of Sosa, barely controlled anger and perhaps even hatred. She lays a calming hand on Scooter’s arm as he falls silent for a moment, taking a huge breath in an attempt to calm himself.

After a moment he continues, his words quieter again, that anger gone as swiftly as it had appeared. He tells her how Face had been taken back to prison at Fort Bragg, cared for in the infirmary there as he went through operation after operation on his broken back. His voice falls to a whisper as he tells her Face had been granted parole after nine months, how he had moved here to live with Sosa, having nowhere else to go.

And finally, he tells her how Hannibal had found out the truth, somehow, and had flown here to see for himself. That answers the question she hadn’t dared ask yet, not once since she’d heard that Hannibal had struck a deal with the military – she had wondered if her oldest boy had flown here with the specific intention of making that deal, determined to hand himself in and free his remaining two team members rather than risk losing them as he had lost his lover. But apparently Hannibal had actually made the deal only after Decker had caught up to them all, in an effort to spare both Face and Sosa as well as Scooter and Murdock.

There are tears in her eyes as she tries to absorb the information her son tells her, though she stays silent until he runs out of words, knowing she needs to hear it all just as much as he needs to tell her. Her poor boys have been through so much more than she could ever have imagined. But beneath the almost overwhelming emotions remains the one incredible fact she still can’t believe. Face has been alive all this time.

“Oh, Scooter…” she sighs as her boy guides the van to a stop at last, in a wide street in the suburbs of DC. A large house, an older house obviously, a ramp visible from the front path up to the main door. Captain Sosa’s house, she realises. Face’s home, for now at least. “He’s here?”

Her son nods, those big hands of his still clutching the steering wheel tightly. “Yeah, Mama. Murdock’s with him. Face is…” Scooter shakes his head once, a tiny smile hovering on his lips for a second before he frowns yet again. “Face is still Face, but at the same time, he ain’t Face no more. If that makes any sense. He’s still hurtin’, Mama. He gets physiotherapy couple times a week, got doctors’ appointments and pills and I don’t know what else.”

She swallows hard, almost scared now they are actually here. “But they can’t fix him, can they?”

“No, Mama. They can’t fix him; he’s gonna be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. But he’s alive.” Without another word, Scooter is quickly out of the van and around to open her door, helping her climb down from the passenger seat. “You ready?”

Concern in her son’s deep voice, and to be honest she isn’t sure she really is ready for this. But she has to be – she needs to see Face now, needs physical proof that everything her Scooter has told her is really true. It all still feels like some strange dream.

Rather than answering his question she simply tells him, “Come on, baby.” He takes her arm in his as they walk together up the path to the house. He knocks twice before simply opening the front door and leading her inside; clearly they are expected, and she can feel her heart really start to race now, thoughts flying all over the place, not knowing what to expect.

There is no time for anything more than hurried first impressions of the house as Scooter leads her through the wide hallway she finds herself in. Clean and tidy, modern despite the obviously aging exterior. Wooden floorboards polished to within an inch of their lives, white painted walls, clearly expensive black furniture. No visible photos or personal touches – the house could belong to anyone, and of all things she finds herself wishing she could help Captain Sosa with her interior design. For that matter, is the other woman here right now? 

But then Scooter opens another door, stepping back and gesturing for her to enter first, and all thoughts of Sosa and interior decoration fly straight out of her head. Taking a deep breath, she steps forward and finds herself in a large, spacious living room, with far more personality than the cold hallway. The same wooden floorboards and white walls, but there are colourful sofa cushions and throws, as well as numerous framed photographs arranged above the fireplace. Her eyes take in all of that in just a fraction of a second as they immediately fall on the single miraculous figure sitting in a wheelchair by the side of the sofa. 

She recognises him immediately. She would know him anywhere, though he is certainly changed, just as Scooter had warned her. She finds herself frozen in the doorway, not quite knowing what to do for the best. A part of her really didn’t believe he would be here, though she knows Scooter would never lie to her, not about something as important as this. 

“Templeton?” she whispers, and he nods once, an uncertain smile hovering on his lips. He moves ever so slightly closer to her, the wheels of his chair silent on the wooden floor. Something deep in her chest seems to snap back into place on seeing him. He is really there, really alive, if broken. “Oh, my boy, my baby! You’re really…”

Scooter’s hand takes her elbow and she finds herself guided gently to a seat in a comfortable armchair. Face, still silent, wheels slowly across the room until he comes to a stop directly in front of her, his eyes watching her carefully. Out of the corner of her eye she sees Murdock stand up abruptly from his seat on the long sofa opposite her chair – she hadn’t even seen him at first, so stunned by the sight of Face – and the pilot opens his mouth as if to speak before seeming to change his mind, dropping back down with a bounce and a thud. 

But she only has eyes for Face, for Templeton, who is really here in front of her, alive where she had thought him dead. Those incredibly bright blue eyes, so striking now where she hasn’t seen them for so very long. Those caramel curls of his, longer now than he used to wear them, curling slightly over his ears. And a neat beard where there had so often been rough stubble, though he had always insisted it was deliberate and fashionable – even before she can bring herself to really look at his wheelchair, he truly looks like a different man, but at the same time he is Face. Templeton. Alive.

“I’m so sorry, Mama.” Face’s voice, when it finally comes, is barely more than a whisper, his lips moving only a fraction. He looks worried despite that hesitant smile, in fact he looks almost scared. Of her, she realises with a start, not knowing how she will react to the news of everything he has done, everything he has been through.

She can’t have that. Not now, not after the miracle that is finding him alive here in DC when he had been dead for so many months. “What on earth are you sorry for, baby?” The strength in her words surprises even her, and Face is visibly stunned. She reaches out one hand, leaning forwards slightly in her chair until she can cup his cheek and stroke ever so gently. Warm, smooth skin beneath her fingers, and she can’t help the wide smile that splits her face even as tears spring into the corners of her eyes. “You’re alive, Templeton. Thank the lord!”

She strokes his cheek over and over again, every one of her mothering instincts noticing the way he leans into her touch, his bright blue eyes flickering shut for just a moment. Always so touch-starved, her boy, something she had seen time and again over the years. How he would light up when Hannibal pulled him into a hug, or after a fistbump with BA or Murdock. And now she is the one who needs to touch, needs to feel her adopted son in front of her. She runs her hand down his neck, over that soft beard that suits him so well, feeling the way his Adam’s apple bobs gently as he swallows nervously. Runs her hand further down to his chest, spreading it wide over his heart, feeling the reassuring thump beneath her palm even as she reaches out blindly for him with her other hand.

Face seems to read her so well, just as he always did once they had gotten to know each other, and he takes her reaching hand in his own, long fingers wrapping around and squeezing gently. At the same time, he guides his wheelchair closer still with his free hand, until his knees are pressing up against hers.

“I’m here, Mama,” he murmurs again, sounding more than a little choked with emotion. “And I really am so very sorry.”

“You should’ve told me,” she tells him firmly, looking deep into his teary blue eyes as she moves her free hand up from his chest to squeeze a slender shoulder. He’s lost a lot of weight; she could tell that just by looking at him, and she determines she will have to start feeding him up straight away. All those bulky muscles he had been so proud of, working so hard to keep his body honed to perfection. All that has gone, now, and beneath her hands she can feel he is far more slender, yet still strong. Lean, wiry muscles more typical of Hannibal and Murdock’s bodies than Face’s – it makes sense of course, she realises with a pang of sadness, since he obviously can’t work out now the way he used to. His poor legs and the wheelchair are testament to that; just one glance tells her how his previously strong legs are now so skinny, the muscles all but wasted away. “Oh, Templeton. Why didn’t you just tell me, baby? You didn’t have to go through all of this on your own.”

“How could I tell you?” Face’s words are still soft, and she frowns as he closes his eyes again, worried for a moment that he is in pain. But his next words suggest he simply doesn’t want to meet her gaze, still concerned about her reaction, perhaps not knowing exactly how much Scooter has told her. “I couldn’t put you in that position, Mama. Couldn’t ask you to lie for me, not to your son. Not for me.”

She smacks him lightly on the shoulder, and those blue eyes snap back open in shock. “You should have told me,” she says again, but her voice breaks on the last two words. Shaking her head, clearing her throat, she asks, “Are you okay? What am I saying; of course you’re not okay. But are you, I don’t know, baby, are you – ?”

“I’m okay, Mama. I am. The big guy told you, right? About everything?” He takes both her tiny hands in his own now, holding them in his lap and squeezing tight. “That this is permanent?”

She nods, dropping her gaze to those strangely skinny legs of his, and the wheelchair in which he sits. Cold silver metal, padded black cushions and a firm support for his lower back. A slender belt around his waist, almost invisible against his clothing, presumably helping him stay upright and keeping his shattered body secure. “He told me,” she says, tears back in her eyes now. This rollercoaster of emotions can’t possibly be good for her; suddenly she’s very glad they didn’t tell her over the phone, when she couldn’t have seen Face or touched him, when she wouldn’t have believed them at all. “He told me, Templeton, but you know I’m gonna need to hear it from you. Not right this second, son, but soon.”

“I know. Oh Mama, please don’t cry. Not for me.” When she lifts her eyes again, she is astonished to see tears in his eyes too, just starting to spill over. “I really am sorry, Mama. For putting you through this. I guess I never thought… I mean, I never expected you would…”

“You didn’t think I’d grieve for you?” He flinches at her words, and she instinctively knows she’s found the heart of the problem. Or, one of the problems, at least. And she wants to shake him, hard. “After all these years, Templeton – how many times have I told you, you are my son? You are all my boys, all of you. And of course I cried when I heard you had been killed. I cried so very hard, and I prayed for you, and I – ”

“Mama…” Scooter, behind her, drops a steadying hand onto her shoulder. “It’s okay…”

Shaking him off, dimly registering Murdock moving up to stand behind Face’s wheelchair, she keeps her focus on Face. This stupid, stubborn boy who has no idea, no idea at all – “Templeton Peck, I may have only given birth to one son, but I have three adopted sons as well. I’m the luckiest woman in the world. And when I heard you had died, it just about broke my poor heart. And now you’re here, alive, and you’re apologising for that?” She laughs out loud, though at the same time those threatening tears finally break their banks and roll down her cheeks. 

“But I am sorry,” he says again, shaking his head and closing his eyes. “Not for the decisions I made, but for the way you’ve been hurt by them.” Through her tears she sees him lift his head and blink his eyes open to look at Scooter, sees the way Murdock drops one arm around Face’s shoulders. “I’m sorry that you’ve all been hurt. I never meant for you to find out, any of you. And now John…”

“Lawyers are on the case, Facey.” Murdock’s voice is choked too, though she can see his eyes are clear and dry as he squeezes his brother gently. “We’ll get the boss out soon.”

Her son moves to rest his bulk on the arm of her chair. “It’ll all be okay, man,” Scooter rumbles, and she wonders what she can possibly say or do to help them, any of them. Face obviously so broken, Murdock and Scooter so confused, yet all of them still the strongest men she has ever known.

Leaning forward in her chair, she takes Face’s head in both hands, forcing him to look at her. She smiles through her tears, drinking in the sight of him. Despite everything, despite his life-changing injuries, he is here and he is alive. Everything else can be fixed, or at least dealt with. 

“We’ll work it all out, Templeton,” she whispers. “We will. It might be prison, but at least Hannibal is safe where he is for now, and I’m sure the lawyers will be able to work out some sort of deal.”

He tries to shake his head again, but she finds she is able to hold him still with very little effort as he sighs, “Mama…”

“Listen to me, baby. Everything will work out, one way or another. It always does. You being here, alive, is proof of that.” She thinks for a moment, wishing again she had the right words. But in the end, there is really very little she can say or do to help, apart from simply being there with them. And she hopes that will be enough. “I love you, Templeton Peck,” she tells him firmly, and those blue eyes fill with tears again. “I’m so incredibly glad you’re here with me. And I love Hannibal, and you too, Murdock, and darling Scooter.”

“Love you too, Mama,” he whispers, a faint smile back on his lips now as he adds, “And Hannibal, Murdock, and darling Scooter.”

She has to laugh at that, even as her son growls beside her, and Murdock just about falls over giggling. Smiles all around, at last, and as strange as the whole situation is, this finally feels a little more normal. If she ignores that wheelchair, and the gaping hole in the room left by Hannibal’s absence, she could almost believe the last nine months had never happened. This is almost as things always used to be, when her son and his team came home to visit her after so many months away on a mission. Her son and his three brothers, her adopted boys. And she has to smile wider, shaking her head in wonder. They might really be able to get that all back, now. Eventually, she strokes her hands over Face’s cheeks once more before sitting back into her chair, shifting her weight on the soft cushions as she wipes her eyes.

“Now, boys,” she states, when the giggling has died down a little. “Who is going to make me a cup of tea?” 

“Me! Me!” Murdock is off and bouncing out of the room immediately, while Scooter heaves himself to his feet as well, following after the crazy pilot.

“You ain’t safe around boiling liquids, fool,” she hears her son call, though years of watching the two of them together tell her that there is no real anger or animosity in his voice, just a deep bond and sense of family. “You need adult supervision!”

Their banter drifts off down the hallway, and she is left alone with Face, who suddenly looks nervous once more. “It’ll be okay, Templeton,” she tells him again, taking the hand he reaches out to her. “You’ll be okay.”

“I don’t know that I will be, not with John in jail,” he whispers, and her heart aches at his confession. 

“You listen to me. You’re not alone any more, baby. You got Scooter and Murdock, and you got this Captain Charissa, who I must say I’m very curious to meet.” That brings a smile back to his lips, just as she hoped. “And you got me, for what that’s worth.”

“It’s worth a lot, Mama. More than you know.” She thinks she does know, a little of it at least – to the boy who grew up without parents, she knows just how hard it had been for Face to accept her as a mother figure. And she feels again just how privileged she is to know and love this wonderful man.

She isn’t crazy enough to think things will be easy from now on. How can they possibly be easy, with Hannibal jailed and so much uncertainty about the future for all of the team? And she wants desperately to sit and just talk with Face for hours, days even, to hear everything from his perspective. To try to understand why he felt he had to fake his own death, though she thinks she has some idea at least, knowing just how much he loves both Hannibal and his two brothers – he wanted to protect them and keep them safe, she thinks, and she has to admire that, even if she does hate the fact that it was necessary at all. Hates the fact that he is in a wheelchair, paralysed and in pain. Hates the fact that the team had to go on the run all those years ago, hates the fact that the military they had served with so much pride simply threw them out without a backward glance.

But what’s done is done, she tells herself with a little shake of her head. She can’t change the past, but she can help them learn to live with it, and she can help them find a way to move forward into their future. A future where they will eventually be free men, all four of them. A future where they won’t have to be on the run anymore. And yes, a future where Face will have to cope with being in a wheelchair, but that’s a small price to pay for having him alive after so many months grieving for him.

“You’ll be just fine, Templeton Peck,” she tells him firmly. “I won’t have it any other way.” After a moment of silence he smiles at her once again, a wider and far more familiar smile now than earlier. He looks just like he always used to – handsome and in control, despite his wheelchair, those bright blue eyes of his twinkling with life. And yes, beneath it all she can see some of the pain he has been through, is still going through in fact. She can see the worry for his lover and his team, and a trace of that guilt despite everything she has said. But Face is alive, he is here, and she finally believes that it really will all be alright. Just as soon as they can find a way to free Hannibal, it will all be just fine.


End file.
